For players - basically everything is powered up.
Feats every second level.
Effectively a nerf to fighters, since the marginal utility of your twentieth bonus feat is much less than the marginal utility of your tenth.
All races have net bonuses on abilities.
Never been an issue for me... I've never cared that much about net bonuses so long as I netted pointbuy points for the stats I wanted high.
There is actually an advantage to taking your races preferred class.
People actually played with the preferred class rules? I thought they were a myth/ flavor text.
Still, 1 hp or 1 skill point isn't much - and as casters tend to multiclass less, it's going to more of a caster benefit than anything else. At least they made sure it didn't apply to PrCs, although it's not like druids or clerics used them that often.
HP are up on average. Skills are up on average. Condensed skills that make your skill based character less thinly spread out.
HP was increased for the following classes:
Wizard
sorcerer
bard
rogue
So, basically, a bump for casters.
Skill changes: Subtract 3 points from your max cap, then give a +3 bonus to all class skills (unstacking). Crossclass skills no longer are capped at half, and don't require extra points. Colour me unimpressed.
Skill points per level were not increased for any classes - not even the fighter, who sorely needs it.
Search, spot, and listen are now perception (standard skill package, except there are separate perception subsets for each of the five major senses, and different racial abilities give different bonuses. Hardly a simplification. Oh, and sweat is easier to smell than blood.);
Hide and move silently folded into stealth (also standard);
Decipher script, forgery, and
Speak Language are now linguistics. Yes, that's right. Whenever you learn how to forge documents better, you also learn how to write and speak a new language
;
balance, jump, and tumble are now acrobatics;
gather information is now part of diplomacy (which is now capped at two {possibly three - it's badly phrased} steps, and slightly less broken - one of the things I do like about the system.)
Open lock is now part of disable device (not a particularly bad move)
Use rope no longer exists (what, they couldn't stick it into disable device or something?)
However, some things we all knew needed fixed are. Yes - wildshape is way less powerful if you don't get an infinite selection of abilities and rely on attribute enhancement instead of attribute replacement. However, one of my players is playing a Druid (Half-Orc) - and my impression is that Druids are still very tough - more tough in some ways.
Here's my nerf for the druid: (Wildshaping, spellcasting, animal companion). Pick two.
It's simple and allows versatility.
I think a bit of the issue is spelled out here:
"Designer Notes: Race and Class Power
These rules increase the power of the base races and classes to some extent. This was done for a number of reasons, the most important of which was to balance them with the current level of power in the game. Over the years, a number of other races and classes have been released that are a bit more powerful than the base options. Since we do not want the core races and classes to be suboptimal choices, and we cannot change the other material, adding to the base choices seemed like the best option. We think that you will f ind these changes are not all that intrusive, and might even allow you to play with some of the other races and classes on an even scale."
It appears they don't realize that three out of the five most broken classes are the cleric, druid, and wizard.
That said, the changes to how manuverability works do make flying a little simpler. On the other hand, they also require dice rolls, so YMMV.
Oh, and they haven't done ANYTHING to the candle of invocation or gate.
Basically, there are four levels they should do, listed in order of priority:
Patches: Fix things that are already horribly broken. Do these first - that way you know you've improved *something*
For example, candles of invocation, diplomacy.
Mechanics: Fix things that aren't horribly broken, but don't work correctly - they're overcomplicated, or just aren't doing what they ought to.
Examples: Grappling, multiclassing with casters. Depending on your POV, combining skills
Balance: Once your mechanics are sound, you've streamlined the subsystems, and you've removed the stuff that's horribly broken, now it's time to make classes and races roughly equal. If you aren't sure what's balanced, call in some optimizers and have them make the most broken characters they can with your current rules. If needed, go back to patches and mechanics for a bit.
Example: nerfing druids.
Pocket Lint: stuff that doesn't really matter, but would be noticeable by its absence. +1 situational modifiers, the craft skill, flavor text, stuff like that
Example: +1 hp for leveling in your favored class.